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*Press sample!* In case people think I can be bought for nail polish and nail products… er… I’d love to be offended by that 😀 However, I can assure you that my opinions here will always be genuine, or so help me I’ll stop doing this. 😀

So, the second of the two items sent to me for review by KKCenterHK (heaps of other stuff on here too, not just nail supplies, but lots of beauty goodies, wigs, some clothing etc), was this plastic stamping plate, retailing for US $8.65 – which can be found at this link here: I found this little round soft plastic circle intriguing because it is a stamper that removes the need for a scraper. One less step? Yeah, o.k, I’m keen to try that!

This was my first attempt with playing with it, and I used the floral/swirly nail tip pattern, dropping the corner slightly to give a diagonal effect. Yeah, I totally misplaced where it was on my nail, but I did like the look, so I kept it and am now pretending that I meant to do it. *cough*

Polishes: two coats of Color Club Abyss, and I stamped using Kleancolor Metallic Fuchsia, and some small pink blingies. At this point, I’d paint the pattern, and stamp-stamp-stamp-stamp on a scrap piece of paper, and when the excess had been removed I’d roll my fingernail over it. This worked, but I made it work better later, and I’ll explain soon 🙂

I really did like this pattern, I’d do it again, for sure. And top coat it! It was quite nice and fresh, I think.

Then for my second one, I chose the scale type pattern, which is a full nail one.

Now, by full nail it’s probably o.k for short nails, it just managed to cover most of my shorter nails, and I certainly don’t have long nails.

And, again, there is some evidence of wonkiness. I am a real beginner to stamping, I’ve wanted to do it for ages, but have no skillz yet, please blame the wonkiness on me, not the plate.

The base colour was Essie Coat Azure, and I stamped with Color Club Blue Heaven, which was lots of subtle until the light hit it, when those holographic rainbows made it look like a real fish 😀

So, tips and thoughts!

*instead of stamping the stamper onto the paper, swipe it, instead. Just wipe it back and forward on a (not already wiped on) bit of paper until all the excess has gone, it’s really quick and very effective, and the lines are clearer.

*rolling your nail over the stamp rather than the stamp over your nail means you can line it up better…. mostly 😀

*this is such a brilliant idea. I wish they had a few more patterns, there are quite a few of them on the KKCenterHK site, but not too many different ones. Make more! I do have my eye on the one with the little bird and the dots though, that’s very cute 😀

Thanks to the good people at KKCenterHK for giving me the chance to play with your products, so much fun.

My nails for St Patricks Day – which was on Sunday here, but I went on Friday night, as the local watering hole had a live band. It was a lovely night, great music, good friends, fun dancing 😀

So, for quick and easy I went with a skittles of my untried green polishes, and added some little green flower doo-dads on my accent nails. So, right to left; on my thumb I have MUA 13, then Orly It’s Not Rocket Science, Color Club Fly With Me, Nubar Reclaim and then Ozotic Scatter 915.

Three coats of each, top coated with Misa BREAK neck. Nice, sparkly, and quick!

Another gorgeous Lush Lacquer gifted to me on my birthday by my Sister V… squee! This is Seas the Moment – blue, green and white matte and satin glitters in a clear base.

But first – the ‘undies’ – my base colour. This is actually a polish my mother made, a gorgeous toddler blue with holographic shimmer. Toddler blue? Yeah, not really as pale and soft as baby blue, just a touch more grown up. 😉 Two layers of this – it was a bit runnier than I expected, and so flooded me nails. And left shimmer behind when I tried to clean it up quickly. Sorry about the mess, I obviously wasn’t feeling all that conscientious!

And because I was dying to try out the 3 way Nail Art Pens again, I added a quick and nasty flower on my ring finger with the pink and black pens, and there is a little black rhinestone in the center of the flower. I like those black blingies, because they are really quite satin, not all that glittery at all! Something different…

Birthday polishes! Birthday polishes from two sisters, independently chosen which work brilliantly together 😀

This is Boe Beauty (a new to me brand) in Purple Knights – a gorgeous blue based purple with blue and red shimmer- this was a present from Sister C – yippee!

sunlight

These types of polish colours are some of my all time favourites! The formula on this was a bit runny, but quite workable, this is two coats here.

Then I added on thin coat of Cruisin 4 a Bruisin – blue, black and mid purple matte in a clear base, part of Lush Lacquers Halloween range, I believe, and a birthday present from Sister V. Thanks, Sister V! I LOVE IT! 😀

This is my second Lush Lacquer polish, and so far I love them all – they are packed full of glitter, and apply almost as easily as a creme. Seriously. Just brush it on like normal, and done!

I have been trying to get a blog post out for days now. And I couldn’t! BUT I have now upgraded my browser to Firefox, and it’s working! WHOOP! Here is the long worked on post – a real mish mash it is, too! 😀

First up, the base colour coat. Because the star polish here was Dollish Polish Toad-ally Awesome, I chose a deep charcoal black to really make those glitters pop. This is Color Club After Hours – two coats, no top coat

Then one coat of Toad-ally Awesome, which is actually totally awesome. Look at the patriotic colours! For about half the world. Anyone else think its funny? Where are the silver and gold flags? The pink and magenta ones? Khaki green? Why so much blue/red/white?

Anywho, this is lovely – all matte glitters except for a sprinkle of blue sparkle glitter in a clear base. Easy to apply, almost no glitter placement required.

Then, Essie Matte About You. I do like matting glitter. Yus.

This looked very nice matte, everything stood out against the background really nicely.

And because it was lying around, I grabbed the Ozotic 509 and free-handed a diagonal stripe, so half had the holographic top coat, and the other half was still matte. Quite liked this effect, too.

Though… maybe not freehand next time. And I may build up the Ozotic a bit more, it’s a gorgeous super holo polish that needs more time to shine 😀

I finally get around to the write-up on this cute polish! This is a pretty new Independant Polish brand, Daily Lacquer. Maggie (the creator) is super lovely to deal with, shipping was fast and packaging was a) great and b) really pretty (you can see it in this post here).This is Makoto, a green, pink, and holographic silver glitter top coat – based on the Sailor Moon series. Now, eek, I know nothing about Sailor Moon, but I do know what polishes I like, and I like this one!

Makoto – Daily Lacquer

For a start, I layered it over China Glaze Gaga For Green. (2 coats, no top coat – nice polish but thin and floody, hence the green cuticles, sorry!).

China Glaze Gaga For Green – sunshine.

Then one coat of Makoto. This is an almost perfect top coat! There are so many glitters that it’s super easy to get enough on your nail, but not so many that they clump. I did have to move a few around a touch to a better position, but nothing strenous at all. No curling, no tricky bits.This glitter is chunky, so I finished it with a coat of NPB Glitter Food – hence the satin look in these photos. I quite like this effect!

Shade:

Sun:

And with a coat of Kleancolor Fast Dry – shade, so as not to blind anyone 😀

Oh, what’s that I hear? You *might* like this polish a little, but it could be too sweet for you? Fair enough – I wouldn’t agree, because I like glitter polishes which are versatile. But, for you, my not-so-sweet people, I give you this:

Two coats of Makoto over Kleancolor Black, matted with Essie Matte About You.

How’s that? I loved this. I like it over the green, I suspect I’ll like it over blue, white, purple and possibly gold, but I did love it over the black.

I did two coats of Makoto to really get that contrast between the matte black and the colourful glitters going, but of course you could do more, or less, depending on the effect you want.

MACRO!

Dry time on this polish was about average – quicker with the matte, of course. Matting it left it a bit bumpy; you could easily overcome this by adding a thicker top coat first, then matte it down. Up to you. I’m lazy, so I didn’t.

Daring Digits Mango Square, over Kleancolor Black. One coat of Kleancolor Black, two of Mango Square, no top coat.

Simple, pretty, and effective! I love the matte teeny white squares, and the larger yellow ones. The yellow is almost translucent, very pretty. Zero application issues, it’s a bit more sparse than it looks, so the two coats were needed.

Then, because I have my replacement Essie Matte About You, I used it.

Really loved this effect! It dried quickly (thanks, Essie!) and was pretty smooth to the touch.

Make a Spectacle is a GORGEOUS iridescent glitter, that on the nail shows orange and several different greens. WOW. I knew (from seeing swatches, and talking to Shipra from Taneja’s Bride) that Cast A Spell is a perfect base for Make A Spectacle, but I wanted to try Kalahari Kiss as well. Accent nail time!

Two coats of each, no top coat. You all know from the previous post here how much I love Cast A Spell. I wasn’t prepared for how much I love Kalahari Kiss. It’s so close to my skin tone, but it – just – works. And then I dotted with Cast A Spell. The idea was to cluster them thicker at the bottom, and more sparse at the top, that’s just what I felt like doing.

And then I thought it looked weird. Cool, but weird.

Then one ONE! coat of Make a Spectacle over all of them. This was so easy to apply. Just perfect.

And it looked very… dinosaur over the green, and my accent nails looked like an egg 😀 LOVE!

Then, because I liked the reptile theme and reptiles aren’t often shiny, I matte’d it with good ol’ Essie Matte About You. Even more dinosaurian!

Even my husband liked this one, and agreed it looks like dinosaurs and an egg :D. Even though the odds are good that dinosaurs actually had feathers. This one didn’t, ok! *Sshhhh!*

I received an almost-unexpected surprise in my mail today, a parcel from Ninja Polish! I didn’t order it, there’s a back story. The first, not-so-good part can be found here, but it’s not big drama. Basically, almost a year ago, a polish I bought was broken in transit, and I emailed to tell them. Breakages happen, we all know this. It’s sad, but it’s life. A few weeks ago, after many attempts on my part to communicate, I heard from Rhonni, in a really sweet email. My emails were lost in transit, but now found – and she was wonderful to talk too. Great customer service. She mentioned a few days ago that she was sending a replacement polish to the broken one, which I really did NOT expect: all I wanted was to alert them to the issue. And today, in the mail, was this:

Up Colors Iris, Ninja Polish Eye Candy, Ninja Polish Alexandrite

OH WOW. Replacing Up Colors Azul Iris was over and above duty, as far as I was concerned. But there is Ninja Polish Eye Candy, and Alexandrite! Sqquuueeeeeeeeee!!

China Glaze and Essie – I accidentally clicked on two Kalahari Kisses, when I wanted the Lion named glitter one. Brain has just died. Can’t recall name. argh. But, anyway! Pretttyyyy! And Color Clubs, including some of the new Halo Hues collection, SQUEE!

Color Clubs: Ho Ho Holly, Holo-Graphic, Blue Heaven and Harp On It

Wow, right? But notice something? Color Club Harp on It, and Blue Heaven, are IDENTICAL. And they shouldn’t be, from all the swatches I’ve seen.

Which is which? One does look a bit different here, but in real life they’re both silver…

I’m pretty sure these bottles were mis-labelled at the factory, because the labels are right..

I’ve emailed Head2Toe, because I really wanted Blue Heaven, and not sure how to sort it out.

And over the weekend was this haul – a really guilty splurge from Darling Diva Polish. She had a limited run of 5 polishes for US $25 – mystery bottles. This is how much I love her polishes, I took the chance and bought one.

Well, actually looking at all of these is giving me palpitations: I have SO many I have yet to try on! I’ve been steadily going through them, and have a large backlog of partially completed blog posts, but I NEED to wear and appreciate all of these, I can’t just swatch them and be done. It may take me some time, be patient with me 🙂

However, if anyone out there in internetville has anything they DESPERATELY want to see soon, let me know and I’ll see what I can do! My nails for you, gentlebeings.

This polish is Essie Jam N’ Jelly – and that name annoys me on a few levels: its not a jelly, really. Not with that super shimmer. and N’?! Really? If it’s a shortened ‘and’, shouldn’t it be ‘N’? Ok, enough already. Its a very pretty polish

.

I bought this off Trade Me, from a lovely trader who packed it beautifully for postage. I also bought Butter London No More Waity Katie, and Zoya Danii from her, photos of Dannii to come later 🙂

This is two very easy coats, no top coat. It dried moderately quickly, and applied well with no streaks or hassle.

It’s a vibrant fuchsia with insane pink shimmer, and as much as I want it to suit me, it just doesn’t. However, I feel it will look amazing as a pedi polish…. and even more fun once I holographic it up 😀